Target Image Best Practices:
Not all images work well as target images.
Their placement also plays an important role in how well they can be tracked.
A basic rule is that complex/detailed images on well lit flat surfaces work best.
Things that will work well:
Image Content:
Make sure that your image is complex, which means that it should:
include many shapes, curves, and edges
include different shapes of different sizes
contain many colours or many shades, so that shapes do not merge
Position:
Images are best on a flat surface such as:
a poster, a book cover, a computer screen, a sticker
Images should be in well lit spaces so:
daylight or good indoor-lighting. The camera needs to be able to see the image well
Examples of good anchor images:
Things that won’t work well:
Image Content:
Very basic symmetric geometric shapes
Single-colour Images
Completely symmetrical images
Just a block of text with no images
Too many repetitive patterns
Position:
Images on a bent surface don't work as well as those on a flat surface, examples include:
a bottle or a page of a book that is not completely flat
Anything non-static, which could be
a screen that reflects light and mirrors its surroundings, a poster with a reflective glass covering, surfaces containing glitter or semi-transparency.
Examples of bad anchor images:
But Not Everything is Black and White, but Black and White is Good 😉
By this we mean that while some things work better than others, the best thing you can do is to test your image target in a real setting. Make sure you print it at the quality you want it to be for the end-user and then test it in a setting that mimics the lighting conditions that the end-user will experience it in.
And regarding black and white; black and white images are great as they have a high contrast, as long as there are enough features in the image.
Finally, take a look at these two target images from the examples in our Example section. We've chosen to use some images that track really well, especially when printed. Note the detail, different shapes and asymmetry of the images:
